I witnessed a miracle today.

It’s not every day you get to see a miracle. Today was my day. And in fact, I saw two.

After co-hosting my wife Sue’s weekly Facebook Live show, Travel Talk, from her office, I spent an hour at our favorite coffee shop, Badger Brew Coffee, working on my next novel. Then I headed to the newly-opened Rice Lake Aquatics and Recreation Center for the first of my twice-weekly swims.

I started swimming at the old municipal pool some 13 years ago as a way to rehab my right knee after replacement surgery. I was skeptical at first, but a fellow martial artist had told me how great swimming was for his own injury rehab, and he was right. I’ve tried to go once or twice a week ever since. Last week, I didn’t make it at all, so today I was eager to get into the water.

I have a tradition that I started a few years ago: do a lap underwater to close my workout. In the old pool, which was shallow at one end to allow for wading, aerobics classes and for children’s play, I would go to one corner of the shallow end and swim underwater–usually successfully–to the opposite corner of the deep end, under the lane ropes and through the diving area to the ladder, a distance of about 35 meters. That’s not possible with the new pool, which actually has two pools: one for lane swimming only, pictured above, and an adjacent pool that is shallow at one end and deep at the other, to accommodate diving. Moreover, the new pool is measured in yards, not meters; the local high school swim team practices and competes here, and the state association uses Imperial measurements, not metric, as in the Olympics. (The NCAA is still using Imperial measure, but is considering switching to meters.)

I was preparing to do my 25-yard underwater swim–I’m hopeful to work my way up to a full 50 yards underwater, which would be about a dozen yards more than what I did before–when I noticed a family arrive at the adjacent pool. The mother and father were in street clothes, but a young boy was suited up and already in the pool. The mother had an infant in her lap. And, there was another child, a slender girl of about 12, wearing a life vest over her bathing suit, cautiously walking down the ramp into the water. Ahead of her, a young woman, evidently a physical therapist, was encouraging the girl, tossing a large ball back and forth.

The hesitant girl was black, and the adults watching her with big smiles were white.

It was apparent that the girl was developmentally disabled. She sometimes looked back at the adults, got encouraging words and nods from them, and took another step into the water. Two steps forward, maybe one step back.

I felt an unexpected jolt of energy surge through me. Sometimes, when I’m feeling the effects of doing a thousand yards, the temptation to just skip the underwater attempt is strong. But not now, not today. I pushed off the wall and easily made it to the other end without breaking the surface till I was touching the far wall. Then, as is my practice, I paddled back to the shallow end on my back. I hopped up on the edge of the pool and removed my goggles. Now I had a clear view of the young girl, and she was nearly up to her waist. The therapist was encouraging her with a big smile and extended arms.

A Bible verse came to mind: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40)

The lifeguard, a teenage girl, was in her chair right next to me. We were both looking at the disabled girl, and I quoted the Bible verse. “Amen,” the lifeguard said.

On the verge of tears, I walked over to the man and woman. Their infant girl, they said, was only ten weeks old. As a father of two and grandfather of one, I know what a blessing children are. I gestured toward the young disabled girl. “Is she your daughter, too?” I asked. Yes, the mom said, the girl, now 13, had been adopted from the Philippines six years ago.

My heart was about to burst. I was surprised at how emotional I was. “God bless you,” I said. They thanked me, and I walked off to the locker room.

The miracle of caring.

As I was showering and changing back to my street clothes, my mind was filled with the images of what I’d just seen. The baby, of course, was a miracle, as anyone who’s been a parent or grandparent knows. Some would say it’s just a matter of reproductive biology; the dad’s sperm united with the mom’s egg, and there you are. Nothing mysterious about it. But I happen to believe that there’s a lot more to it than that. Think of the astonishing complexity of the human organism, and how everything has to be just right for that sperm and egg to get together and create a new human being, unique and distinct from any of the billions of humans who have been born before her. There is nothing else exactly like her in the entire universe.

Was this child just a random collection of atoms that happened to join together and grow into this little human? Or was there a higher power at work? I happen to believe quite strongly in the latter hypothesis. You can call it “intelligent design” if you wish, but I invite you to take a short leap from there, to God.

And what of this little girl’s older sister? One could say that God didn’t quite put her together perfectly, did He? Assuming her disability was not the result of an accident or illness, she was born the way she was, and has grown into the girl she now is, one who needs help overcoming her fear of the water, and presumably help in overcoming a lot of other things. Yet the young therapist was joyfully working with her, taking pleasure in each tentative step the girl was taking into the pool. Yes, that was the therapist’s job today, but nobody was forcing her to do it. She was doing this work because she felt compelled to do it. Because she cared. And in today’s world, “caring” seems to be near-miraculous, all by itself. If you spend any time looking at social media, you’ll see some compassion, some love, but you’ll also see a lot of vitriol, insults, hatred.

Much of the popular culture would not only say that these two precious girls started out as nothing more than collections of cells that could’ve been swept away on a whim, one of them probably should’ve been. It appears fewer and fewer people are familiar with Matthew 25:40. But we all should be.

Jesus had plenty to say about marginalized people. Some years back, Sue and I were in Israel, and visited the site of the Sermon on the Mount. From the very spot where Christ preached the words that came to be known as the Beatitudes, I read from that 5th chapter of Matthew, which included this verse:

Sometimes you have to really look for miracles. Other times, they’re right over there. All we have to do is pay attention.